Reply of the authors

We thank Drs. Simonstein and Mashiach for their interest in our article (1). Unfortunately, they appear to have misinterpreted some of our findings. Our results did not show that “women may continue with IVF treatment even when the probability of a successful outcome is ‘zero,’ ” and our article does not provide support for a policy of limitless IVF. Rather, we found that many women cease IVF cycles at a point well before the success curve appears to saturate, thus raising the possibility that for some women additional cycles could confer reproductive benefit.
We agree with Drs. Simonstein and Mashiach that the long-term health consequences of IVF treatment need to be investigated. This is the subject of our current research.